Bottom of Buggy (BOB) is a common grocery and general retail industry term. BOB is a key phrase that retail managers use to express their desire for cashiers to pay close attentions to a bottom storage area of shopping carts in order to spot items that need to be processed through the cash register or other point of sales terminal.
Point of sales terminals are known in the art and need not be described in great detail. Generally speaking, they comprise a software package operating a collection of hardware devices including a keyboard, monitor, barcode scanner, weight scale, and electric payment terminal device. The point of sale terminal reads in objects, usually by barcode or unique identification number and optionally by weight, as they are presented to a cashier and keeps a running total payable for purchased products.
The bottom storage area of the shopping cart refers to a flat storage area, typically just above the wheels, which runs the length of the shopping cart and is located underneath the main package storage area. This area is a concern for retail managers because it is often obscured from the cashier's view. Therefore, items placed on the bottom of the cart may be missed by the cashier and losses may be incurred by a store.
Losses through missed items on the bottom of the cart can occur for a number of different reasons. The customer may forget that there is an item on the bottom of the shopping cart and either is never aware that the item has not been properly processed through the store's Point Of Sale system or decides not to return to the store once they are aware of the unprocessed items.
Alternately, an unscrupulous customer may attempt to hide the existence of items located on the bottom of the buggy. This can be accomplished in many different fashions, including: covering the bottom of the main package storage area with a flyer or articles of clothing so as to shield the bottom of the buggy from the cashier's view; placing articles of clothing over top of items located on the bottom of the shopping cart, concealing the items underneath; pushing the shopping cart through the checkout aisle quickly enough so as not to give the cashier time or opportunity to check the bottom of the shopping cart.
Yet further, some cashiers may be negligent in their duty to practice due diligence in checking for items in the bottom of the shopping cart. Worse yet, unscrupulous cashiers may act in coercion with customers known to them personally and purposely not process items placed on the bottom of the shopping cart, in effect defrauding the retailer. This is often referred to as a form of “sweet hearting”.
The retail industry, most notably the retail grocery industry, has long suffered these types of losses despite the several inventions designed to reduce them. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,485,006 issued to Allen describes a detection mechanism that uses photodetectors to detect the presence of objects located on the lower storage section of a shopping cart as it moves past a checkout station, an audio and/or video alarm for alerting the cashier to the detected object, and a video camera for recording a video image of the object that was detected. Allen discloses that once the alarm state is entered, the cash register draw is commanded to close, thereby preventing any further transactions. The alarm state remains until nullified by depressing a push-button at the checkout station. However, locking the cash register typically occurs after the customer has been checked out. Therefore, the cashier may not notice that there is an item on the lower storage cart until it is too late, The cashier would then have to ring the items in separately which is time consuming and tedious for both the cashier and customer.
Another example of a prior art attempt to solve this problem is described by U.S. application Ser. No. 2003/0184440, filed by Ballantyne. The application describes an item detection apparatus that uses an optical line generator, an area-imaging sensor, and a pattern analyzer to determine the presence or absence of items on the bottom tray of a cart as it moves through a checkout aisle. The pattern-recognition algorithm used by the pattern analyzer determines a differential image process to remove the impact of ambient lighting on the analysis. If an item is detected on the bottom tray of the cart, an audible alarm may be triggered and a secondary system, such as a wheel brake, may be activated that physically prevents further movement of the cart through the checkout aisle. Similar to the previous solution, the cashier may not notice that there is an item on the lower storage cart until it is too late. The cashier would then have to ring the items in separately which is time consuming and tedious for both the cashier and customer.
Further, Canadian Patent No. 2,283,382 issued to Ballantyne describes an inspection apparatus that uses a sensor for detecting the presence of a shopping, a video camera for capturing an image of the lower portion of the shopping cart, and an image display for displaying the image to the cashier. If the presence of a shopping cart is detected, the image of the lower portion of the shopping cart is displayed on the image display. The image display remains until the cash register drawer is closed. The present solution simply displays the bottom of the buggy to the cashier while the transaction is taking place. Typically, however, as the cashiers become accustomed to the display, they will begin to pay less attention to it, reducing its effect.
Yet another example of prior art attempt to solve this problem is described by U.S. Pat. No. 5,883,968 issued to Welch. The patent describes a fraud-detection system that uses a colour video camera to identify the items that are contained in a shopping cart. The system uses a colour-normalization technique to improve the accuracy of the item identification process. The system also takes an overhead image of the checkout station and the adjacent cart aisle to determine whether the shopping cart is empty. If, at the end of the transaction, the shopping cart is found to be not empty, the system determines whether the transaction involved the purchase of any items that are considered to be too large to be placed on the take-away belt of the checkout station. An “event” is generated if the shopping cart is found to be not empty, but the transaction record contains no “large” items. However, the patent does not explain the ramifications of such an event being generated.
Accordingly, even with such a proliferation of solutions, Bottom Of Buggy product detectors have achieved only a very limited success in the marketplace since there has been a continuing need for improvement. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to obviate or mitigate at least some of the aforementioned disadvantages.